Larry Ellison, chief executive of US technology giant Oracle, has attacked
Hewlett-Packard's (HP) board for forcing Mark Hurd from his five-year tenure
at the helm of the personal computing company.

Mr Ellison, an old friend of Mr Hurd, likened the actions of HP's board – of which Mr Hurd was chairman and chief executive – to that of Apple's board in 1985 when it ditched co-founder Steve Jobs, who remained away for the company for 12 years before returning in 1997.

"The HP board just made the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs many years ago," Mr Ellison wrote in an email to The New York Times.

Mr Jobs' exit led to 12 years in the technology wilderness for Apple, during which time he bought Pixar and founded NeXT, which created the basis for Apple's OSX operating system.

Mr Hurd resigned from the world's largest maker of personal computers on Friday night after an internal investigation, sparked by sexual harassment allegations from former HP contractor Jodie Fisher. The investigation found him not to have breached any harassment guidelines but to have broken the company's business standards conduct after allegedly falsifying expenses claims to cover up his friendship with Ms Fisher.

Mr Ellison claimed HP's board voted 6-4 in favour of going public with Ms Fisher's claims. "In losing Mark Hurd, the HP board failed to act in the best interest of HP's employees, shareholders, customers and partners," he continued. "Publishing known false sexual harassment claims is not good corporate governance; it's cowardly corporate political correctness."

Ms Fisher said in her own statement that she did not have an "intimate sexual relationship" with Mr Hurd and that the pair have settled her claim privately.

Mr Ellison also said that his friend did not commit expense fraud, saying such claims were "not credible" and showed the "HP board desperately grasping at straw in trying to publicly explain the unexplainable".

Other anonymous friends of Mr Hurd have come to his defence, saying that his misfiled expenses were the result of mistake by his administrative staff, and that he has since paid all monies owing back to the company.

HP dismissed Mr Ellison's claims, saying that the "board voted unanimously for Mr Hurd's resignation" and that was the only vote it took on the issue.

HP shares were broadly unchanged in lunchtime trading at $42.65 in New York.